Swimming With Crocodiles, but Well Oiled

Big River Man

Martin Strel, an endurance swimmer, in a documentary by John Maringouin that tracks Mr. Strel's 2007 Amazon conquest, which began in Peru on Feb. 1 and ended in Brazil on April 7.Credit
Self Pictures

Of all the strange creatures in the documentary “Big River Man,” including the slithering snakes, watchful crocodiles and something called the penis fish (you don’t want to know), few seem as weird or wondrous as its title character. Otherwise known as Martin Strel, the big man here is an outsized Slovenian who, well into adulthood, decided to swim — for reasons he can’t truly explain — the length of some of the longest, most perilous rivers in the world, including the Mississippi. An eccentric worthy of Werner Herzog, Mr. Strel was born to swim, at least on camera: he’s a bobbing, at times foundering star attraction.

“Big River Man” tracks Mr. Strel’s improbable 2007 conquest of the Amazon, which began in Peru on Feb. 1 and ended 66 event-and-parasite-filled days later in Brazil on April 7. For more than two months Mr. Strel, then 53, and his retinue — along with the director John Maringouin — churned through 3,274 miles of river on an adventure that crossed national and psychological borders and often seemed downright absurd if not entirely pointless. Mr. Strel liked to say he was swimming the Amazon in order to protect the rain forest, even if, as his son, Borut, freely says mid-excursion, “No one knew exactly what the hell he meant by that.” But as the self-help books say, it’s the journey that’s important, not the destination. And so it is here.

How and why Mr. Strel decided to become an endurance swimmer remains as murky as some of the waters he braves in the movie, despite some biographical details. There’s an abusive father lurking in the past. Mostly, though, you get the sense that Mr. Strel, a former (if not entirely reformed) gambler turned flamenco guitar teacher (really), wanted something to do. Whatever the case, he didn’t take to his new recreational habit lightly. During training, Mr. Strel swims five hours a day and spends some of his remaining time in a cave. “He believes,” Borut explains, “that if he thinks like an animal while he’s swimming the Amazon, he will not get eaten.” Given that the older Mr. Strel made it out alive, he might be on to something.

No man swims alone, especially for weeks at a time, and in “Big River Man” Mr. Strel is flanked by his usual assistants, including Borut, his closest aide, who serves as the movie’s brightly descriptive, often very funny narrator. Joining them is Mr. Strel’s navigator, Matthew Mohlke, a total dude who used to push supermarket carts back home in the States. (“I’m just a fisherman from Wisconsin,” he says, though he seems more Californian.) Also along for the ride, of course, is Mr. Maringouin, a multitasker making his third feature, who shot the movie on HD and served as one of its producers and editors. (Among the other producers are the singer Olivia Newton-John Easterling and her husband, John Easterling, founder of the Amazon Herb Company.)

Although he stays out of the picture and largely out of earshot, Mr. Maringouin doesn’t feign neutrality. The movie opens with some text, a quotation from the French writer Jacques Prévert, which is clearly meant to give you pause: “When I see a swimmer, I paint a drowned man.” (The line, somewhat differently translated, is from the Marcel Carné film “Port of Shadows.”) The quotation points you in a direction, certainly. But Mr. Maringouin doesn’t force the issue, letting questions about Mr. Strel’s mission and his fitness, physical and otherwise, emerge from the material. This seems less a matter of ethics or personal reserve: Mr. Strel’s behavior — he drinks booze, for instance, while he swims — seems answer enough.

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Mr. Strel is a documentarian’s gift by virtue of his larger-than-life eccentricities and appetites. But “Big River Man” isn’t a standout for its subject alone. It takes real filmmaking skill to turn a fat man in a wet suit, slimed in Vaseline and lanolin (a precaution against parasites), slicing through brown water for hours, weeks, months, into mesmerizing cinema, even with lurking crocodiles. As his attention to detail and beauty shots prove, Mr. Maringouin has a terrific eye: he brings you close to Mr. Strel, sometimes within panting distance, without forgetting the larger, lovelier world. Yet as is often the case with documentaries of this sort, which can involve countless hours of material, it is the editing that distinguishes and makes the movie.

Working with his co-editor, Molly Lynch, Mr. Maringouin has shaped a richly textured narrative about human endeavor that ebbs and flows, surprises and touches and sometimes even disgusts (just a little). Mr. Strel isn’t terribly articulate: his son does most of his talking (and hustling), at least here, which limits how far you get inside his head. (In one late scene, though, Mr. Maringouin expressionistically evokes the delirium and loneliness of his long-distance swimmer through a flurry of jagged angles and cuts.) Yet while Mr. Strel seems incapable of explaining himself, the documentary, which churns, drifts and surges around him like water, is finally an argument for wonder: Why does this or any man swim? Because, as Mr. Maringouin suggests, we are a mystery.

Directed by John Maringouin; co-directed and conceived by Molly Lynch; written and edited by Mr. Maringouin and Ms. Lynch; director of photography, Mr. Maringouin; music by Rich Ragsdale; produced by Maria Florio, Ms. Lynch, Mr. Maringouin and Kevin Ragsdale; executive producers, Olivia Newton-John Easterling and John Easterling; released by the Salt Company, Self Pictures, KNR Productions and Earthworks Films. At the IFC Center, 323 Avenue of the Americas, at Third Street, Greenwich Village. Running time: 1 hour 40 minutes. This film is not rated.

Big River Man

NYT Critic’s Pick

DirectorJohn Maringouin

StarsMatthew Mohlke, Borut Strel, Martin Strel

Running Time1h 40m

GenreDocumentary

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Last updated: Nov 2, 2017

A version of this review appears in print on December 4, 2009, on Page C10 of the New York edition with the headline: Swimming With Crocodiles, but Well Oiled. Order Reprints|Today's Paper|Subscribe